If you benefit and learn from the FDP and enjoy our site, please help support us and become a Contributing Member or make a Donation today! The FDP counts on YOU to help keep the site going with an annual contribution. It's quick and easy with PayPal. Please do it TODAY!

I'm sure you'll get many varied opinions on what you need. Having a dedicated computer for recording is a good thing, but not a necessity. I'm currently running a MacBook Pro with Pro Tools 11. My computer is not totally dedicated to recording, but I don't have a lot of extraneous BS on it either.

As far as AD/DA conversion, I'm using a Focusrite 18i20 for my interface. It has 8 inputs and I'm going to increase my inputs to 16 channels soon. I record my band with this rig and it works very well. However, I could use 8 channels on drums alone. Hence the need for more inputs. I'll probably end up with 24 channels eventually, but I'm not there yet. What you'll need will be based on how many inputs you need to multi-track.

"Will I need special USB 3 interfaces?"

The Focusrite is USB 2.0 if I'm not mistaken. This is still an area where I'm paying close attention to which direction the industry is going. I think Firewire is on the way out and the lightning connection may be the next thing we'll see as far as connections.

"Will I have problems with time delays while recording during playback?"

Possibly. It all depends how low you can get the latency. This is the main reason I made the switch to Mac. There is almost zero latency when playing virtual instruments or direct monitoring. Something I was never able to achieve with my PC based system. I know plenty of people that have no issues with their PC based systems though.

"Will I have problems with stuff I can't even anticipate at this moment?"

I use Pro Tools 10 on a HP ProBook 4540s laptop, with an MAudio MBox mini USB interface and an external Glyph harddrive. My unit is not totally dedicated (but it should be). To my knowledge there aren't any consumer grade affordable USB 3.0 audio interfaces yet, so 2.0 is good to go. Latency can be an issue/annoyance, but not insurmountable in my setup. I haven't had any experience with Macs yet, but I don't think a Pro Tools setup (for instance) will produce any better audio with one over the other.

"Will I have problems with stuff I can't even anticipate at this moment?"

Yes. To use an analogy, be prepared to feel like a carpenter who has to go to training to learn a new hammer. I can't handle information overload so I take it in baby steps, and YouTube is a very useful tool.

I record using an inexpensive ($499) Windows 7 ASUS laptop, to an inexpensive 500GB WD USB drive, using the least expensive 8 mic USB interface you can get, the Tascam US1800, and get excellent results at up to (so far) 26 tracks.

Just about any interface these days allows for direct monitoring where you can balance your recorded input with the playback for basically zero-latency monitoring.

I think the only time you really have to worry about latency is when recording software VST instruments such as guitar/amp sims, synths, etc. If your latency is set too high then you start hearing what you're playing echoing back to you, which can be disconcerting.

Low latency isn't hard to achieve, though, with a new-ish computer, and by doing things such as not having a bunch of programs open other than your recording software, and recording things that need you to set the latency low before piling on the tracks or (especially) the effects.

Even a baseline $500 laptop as noted these days will be more than adequate for a few track at a time recording.

It's not 2001 in hardware any more.

I can do 24-28 tracks (I can chain in a couple extra interfaces if I needed to) record at once - there's a split off my patchbay for *every* rack unit and mics on each amp and a room mic or three, and....

Since I can't play and mix at the same time, I eliminated the middleman and set it up so I could do it afterwards if levels were in the rough ballpark.

The default software it came with would have been more than adequate (or Reaper would have worked too) if I wasn't already in a netherworld of odd DAW choices for a decade now.

How much machine you need will be dictated on your needs. Without knowing that, nobody can provide you *the* answer.

If you want ease and are willing to throw a little more money at the equation, talk to one of the Sweetwater reps, they will sell you a complete box that will plug in and work. It won't be cheap but, it will be easy.

There will definitely be latency, but it may not be an issue depending on how you record.

If the Mackie has monitoring on it, it's probably "direct monitoring" which means you can hear the audio from your mic coming in without an appreciable delay. If connected via USB as an interface, it should play your PC recorded media to you as well. I avoid latency is this way when recording.

Now if you want effects running in your DAW and need to monitor that... good luck.

Moderators: Chris GreeneIron Manreverendrob
FDP, LLC Privacy Policy: Your real name, username, and email
are held in
confidence and not disclosed to any third parties, sold, or used for
anything other than FDP Forum registration unless you specifically
authorize disclosure.